Green sounds pretty simple, and it is (there are few words here), but I thought it was well executed. It is, as it sounds, a celebration of the many shades and forms of green in the world, from "jungle green," to "faded green" (paint), to "shaded green" (apple trees). The illustrations are vibrant and textured, and the pages include clever cut-outs that become something totally different once you turn the page and they show through the other side. 

My kids and I enjoyed this one and, for the record, there are certainly other colors in the illustrations as well (including a red stop sign as evidence of "never green.")

Scrounged From: Our local library

Format: Hardcover
Author/illustrator: Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Pages: 36
Content Advisory: None

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Grains of Sand is a short and sweet story of a boy and girl who bring sand home from the beach in their shoes, and then wonder what would happen if they planted it. If grains of sand were seeds, what kinds of things would they grow into if you threw them in your garden? Ice cream? Pinwheels?

It is fun to watch children's imagination at work (and inspire the imagination of those reading), and the simple illustrations are appealing -- black-and-white images with splashes of blue and yellow here and there.

(Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.)

Scrounged From: NetGalley

Format: Kindle
Author/illustrator: Sibylle Delacroix
Pages: 32
Content Advisory: None

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Wallpaper is a wordless story that's beautifully illustrated with paper collage art. It tells the tale of a young girl who has just moved into a new house, and is nervous about meeting the new children next door. Instead, she takes a journey into the wallpaper where she is chased by an odd yellow creature through several layers of amusingly decorated wallpaper before she realizes the monster just needs a friend. 

Her friendship with the imaginary creature helps give her the courage to say hello to some potential new friends in the real world. I appreciate seeing shyness covered in a children's book, and I also liked the interplay between fantasy and reality. The different "worlds" in the different layers of wallpaper were also well done. 

(Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.)

Scrounged From: NetGalley

Format: Kindle
Author/illustrator: Thao Lam
Pages: 32
Content Advisory: None

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Barnum's Bones was a really neat story of a historical figure I'd never heard of before. Since my five-year-old is a dinosaur enthusiast, we both enjoyed this story about the man who discovered the first documented Tyrannosaurus skeleton.

Barnum Brown seems an almost larger-than-life figure as his obsession with fossils compels him to attend school, become a paleontologist, and spend his life searching all over the world for as many fossils as he can "sniff out." But what he really wants is to discover something new -- something that will make the American Museum of Natural History proud.

While it doesn't happen immediately (and the process is especially slow since it was limited to turn-of-the-twentieth-century technology -- horses, wagons, and trains), he does eventually discover the bottom half (ish) of a Tyrannosaurus, but it is several years later before he gets back to a nearby spot and finally finds the enormous head. What it must have been like to be an ordinary person in those days and be astounded at these new kinds of discoveries! 

Scrounged From: Our local library

Format: Hardcover
Author: Tracey Fern
Illustrator: Boris Kulikov
Pages: 36
Content Advisory: None

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I had never heard of Maria Sibylla Merian before, so this was a very interesting intoduction to her life and work. Merian was born in Germany in 1647, and spent her later life in Amsterdam, Holland. This book chronicles her artistic development as well as her scientific exploration. Her specialty was insects -- she would observe all the insects she could find and take notes on their life cycles. She also painted detailed, scientifically accurate pictures of many many insects and plants.

Around 1700, she and her daughter made a scientific voyage to Surinam to study, paint, and collect specimens of native plants and animals, something that was unheard of for a woman in those days -- as the book says, she was a woman "far ahead of her time." She and her daughters published several volumes of paintings, some of which ended up in the collections of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

This book includes many of her paintings (with detailed captions explaining the plants and animals in each one) as well as an overview of Maria Sibylla Merian's legacy at the end -- she's had several organisms named in her honor since her death. The book also includes a glossary and bibliography.

It is inspiring to read about the ways that scientific curiosity and exploration have compelled people (mostly men in those days) to observe, explore, and carefully record the world around them, even long before modern scientific framework or conveniences. It's especially inspiring to read about a woman doing the same thing even when it went against the social expectations of the day.

(Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.)

Scrounged From: NetGalley

Format: Kindle
Authors: Sarah B. Pomeroy and Jeyaraney Kathirithambi
Pages: 96
Content Advisory: There are a few descriptions of slavery and mistreatment of slaves in South America during this time period.

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